Cooking Lesson #312: Chocolate Mint Cookies

… from the California Kitchen

How you doin’? This melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cookie is topped with mint chocolate “frosting.” It's delicious and it's easy! It is the perfect after dinner mint treat to complement any meal and any season.
 
But what you may ask, was the origin of this cookie recipe?  It all started with the Girl Scouts nearly 100 years ago. Their cookies have been evolving ever since Girl Scout Cookies got their start. Back then, there was no such thing as the Thin Mint, Samoa or Tagalong.
 
According to the organization’s history, the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Okla., baked and sold the first-ever batch of Girl Scout Cookies in their high school cafeteria in 1917. A July 1922 American Girl magazine feature provided a simple sugar cookie recipe, suggesting that they be sold door-to-door for 25 to 30 cents per dozen (my, how times have changed!).
    Girl Scouts selling cookies in 1928.
 
But not every Girl Scout was doing the baking herself. “Grandma used to bake the cookies,” former Girl Scout Selma Rutledge says, “I was never the kitchen cooker, I stayed outside and sold them. Selling cookies taught me how to meet people and how to present myself. It gave me the courage to stand up and speak up.”
 
She used to wrap five or six of Granny’s oatmeal cookies in a small paper bag, with a little ribbon around it. That was the start. But when did the Thin Mint emerge? Although Rutledge sold homemade cookies, the Girl Scouts began standardizing their cookies in 1936, when the organization licensed its first baker.
 
1939 brought the first iteration of the Thin Mint, then called “Cooky-Mints.”
By 1948 there were 29 different licensed bakers making a Girl Scout Mint Cookie. The minted cookie has had a myriad of names over the years… Mints changed to Chocolate Mint to Thin Mint to Cookie Mint to Chocolate Mint to Thin Mints to Thin Mint and finally, back to the plural Thin Mints.
 
Here is my recipe for what is close in flavor to the original. This version, Chocolate Mint Cookies, is a littler thicker and chewier cookie than the Girl Scout version, but the chocolaty-mint flavor is spot on!
 
Prep time:  10 minutes
Refrigerate time:  1 hour
Bake time:  10 to 12 minutes
Cool time:  20 minutes
Yield:  About 30 cookies
 
Ingredients
3/4 cup unsalted butter (1-1/2 sticks)
1-1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon mint extract
2 -1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
36 chocolate thin mint wafer candies (like Andes Mints)
 
Directions

1. In a large pan over low heat, cook the butter, sugar and water until the butter is melted.
2. Add chocolate chips and stir until partially melted. Remove from heat and continue to stir until chocolate is completely melted.
3. Pour into a large bowl and let stand 10 minutes to cool slightly.
4. At high speed, beat in the eggs, one at a time into chocolate mixture.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
6. Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients, beating until well blended.
7. Chill the dough about 1 hour.
8. Preheat an oven to 350⁰F.
9. Scoop and roll the dough into balls (about 2 heaping tablespoons—1-1/2 ounces or a #30 scoop) and place them on ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
10. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.
11. While the cookies are baking unwrap the chocolate mints and divide each in half.
12. When cookies are still hot and fresh right out of the oven, put 1/2 mint on top of each cookie and press in gently.
13. Let the mints sit for up to 5 minutes until melted, then spread the melted mint on top of the cookies.
14. Let the cookies cool to allow the chocolate mints to cool and set-up.

ChefSecret: Do not skip the step to refrigerate the dough. This allows the flour to properly hydrate so that it doesn’t over spread when baking, ensuring the perfect cookie size and texture.

Quip of the Day: “I suggested building beds above each other to save space, but the idea was debunked.”

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